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CNN
E-cigarette warnings
to arrive in high school bathrooms nationwide
By Sandee LaMotte
September 18, 2018
(CNN) The US Food and Drug Administration will stage a massive
education campaign aimed at the nearly 10.7 million teens at risk for
e-cigarette use and potential addiction, the agency said Tuesday.
For the first time, the agency will take the message that vaping is
dangerous into high school bathrooms and social media feeds of those
at-risk youth to stop what the FDA calls an epidemic of e-cigarette use
by minors.
The trend was flagged in a 2016 report from the US surgeon general,
which cited a 900% increase in e-cigarette use by high school students
between 2011 to 2015.
For Firdaus, a man from the Association for Persons with Special Needs,
IHG did more than find him employment.
More than 2 million middle and high school students used e-cigarettes
in 2017, the FDA said.
"We're in possession of data that shows a disturbingly sharp rise in
the number of teens using e-cigarettes in just the last year," FDA
Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said. "In short, there's no good news."
While applauding the FDA's move, Linda Richter, director of policy
research and analysis for the nonprofit Center on Addiction, said that
if the agency had taken action when the trend was first identified, "we
probably could have avoided the surge in the use of child-friendly,
high-dose nicotine products that we're now seeing among kids as young
as 12 years old."
"Today's teens were on the cusp of being the first generation to
broadly reject cigarette smoking but instead have become hooked on
nicotine due to a decade of lax oversight over e-cigarette products,"
she added.
The dangers of e-cigarettes
E-cigarettes work by heating a pure liquid called e-juice -- composed
of flavorings, propylene glycol, glycerin and often nicotine -- until
it vaporizes. Popular flavors like tutti frutti, cotton candy and sour
gummy worms have attracted younger users to e-cigarettes, which now
often look like USB devices that are easy to hide and use without
detection.
Recent studies have shown that e-cigarettes are a direct gateway to
traditional cigarettes and have a number of health issues beside the
addictive properties of nicotine. A study in the journal Pediatrics,
for example, found five cancer-causing toxins in the urine of
16-year-olds who inhaled e-cigarette vapor.
"No youth should ever use e-cigs," Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams
said in a video during Tuesday's announcement. "We must make it crystal
clear that e-cigarette use can expose them to dangerous chemicals that
can cause lung damage when inhaled."
Bathrooms are a first for FDA
The new campaign is an extension of the The Real Cost Youth E-Cigarette
Prevention Campaign, which the FDA says is a nearly $60 million effort
funded by fees from the tobacco industry.
The campaign will launch on digital sites and social media platforms
popular with young people, such as YouTube, Facebook and Spotify, with
videos that show disturbing pictures of damaged lungs and zombie-like
students with vaping products glued to their mouths.
In addition, the campaign will place posters in the bathrooms of at
least 10,000 high schools across the country, the first time the FDA
has placed ads in bathrooms.
"For the first time ever, we are bringing the campaign into high
schools to the point of contact where they are doing the behavior,"
said Kathy Crosby, who directs the Office of Health Communication and
Education at the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products.
In addition, she said, the ads will be on school education platforms
such as where teens check their grades or sports scores.
"Flavored vape juice may not be as sweet as it sounds," one video says
as the strawberries on the screen rot into dry fungus.
"Strangely enough, some students come in here to put crap into their
bodies," one bathroom poster reads.
An e-cigarette prevention campaign will target young users.
The need for this aggressive approach, Center for Tobacco Products
Director Mitch Zeller said, is due to the fact that while young people
may never consider smoking a cigarette, "about 80% of youth see no
problem in the use of e-cigarettes."
More startling, Crosby added, is that use is growing because teens are
encouraging their friends to use e-cigarettes, a behavior officials
have not seen for years with tobacco products.
The campaign used focus-group testing with young people to maximize the
impact of the ads, Zeller said. The testing found that highlighting
specific health messages such as chemicals and dangers was more
effective than a general message that vaping is bad.
"Vaping can put dangerous chemicals, like diacetyl, into your lungs,"
one poster says.
"Vaping can deliver nicotine to your brain, reprogramming you to crave
more and more," another reads.
Teens use e-cigarettes for 'dripping,' study says
"The stalls may have #1 and #2," another bathroom poster says, "but
vapes may have #24, #28, and #82." The small print beneath explains,
"Vapers can inhale toxic metals into their lungs -- like these from the
periodic table: chromium, nickel, and lead."
Richter said it might be more effective "if the target audience
included kids younger than 12, since many 12-year-olds already are
vaping," adding that the message should also be presented by trusted
teachers and other peer and adult role models.
Matthew Myers, president of the nonprofit Campaign for Tobacco-Free
Kids, said, "I think the ad campaign is extraordinarily positive and
courageous for the federal government, and it will make some
difference. But the vaping industry has used a deadly marketing
campaign combining kid-enticing flavors and marketing on social media
that has also been very effective.
"Voluntary action by companies has never been a solution," he added,
"and the FDA must prohibit their social media marketing and crack down
on the use of flavors."
Gottlieb pledged Tuesday to do more, referencing warning letters sent
last week to more than 1,300 retailers that illegally sold Juul and
other e-cigarettes to minors.
At that time, the FDA also gave e-cigarette manufacturers 60 days to
show how they'll keep the devices out of the hands of young people or
face regulatory action.
"I am meeting with largest manufacturers myself, and I won't stop until
this problem is solved," Gottlieb said. "It may be the most important
thing I do in my time as commissioner."
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